Content

Tuesday 24 July 2012

Unstoppable Glomp! - PvE F Grappler Guide

Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Builds
III. Active Skill Analysis
IV. Passive Skill Analysis
V. Equipment, Avatars, and Emblems
VI. Tips & Tricks

I. Introduction
Hi! I'm SisterSuplex and I've been a grappler ever since DFO's open beta.  Here's a video of me running Reshpon, the currently hardest non-Otherverse dungeon in DFO, on King's Road.

This is a guide that I wrote, for my dear sister Dervishes and Grapplers and Grapplerlings. It is current as of 9/13/2012. If you are none of the above, then presumably you are pondering whether or not you should be a grappler. The short answer is yes, you should! The long answer is yes, you really really really should! The actually helpful answer is "hey check out this list of pros and cons I made".
Pros:
Cheap gear
You are invincible forever
Huge, powerful AoEs
Fantastic for party support
Bosses are your bitch

Cons:
Scales poorly with additional investment
Mediocre damage against single targets
Mediocre burst damage
Okay, so now that everyone reading this guide is maining a female grappler now, let's move on.

II. Builds
Q: I'm lazy, can you just give me your build?

For those of you who want to create your own build, here is my advice!

Things you must get:
  • 1 Quick Rebound
  • 1 Tiger Chain Strike
  • 1 Back Breaker
  • 1 Air Walk
  • Max Unstoppable Glomp Grab
  • Max Fling and its EX Upgrade
  • Max Intense Takedown
  • Max Giant Twister
  • Max Air Clutch (the EX active version of Air Steiner)
  • Max Cyclone Attack (the EX active version of Cyclone Suplex)
  • Max Cyclone Suplex and its EX upgrade
  • Max Spiral and its EX upgrade
  • At least 1 in every grab, and the prerequisites necessary to make this happen
  • 1 Neck Snap
  • Cancel - Suplex
  • Cancel - Fling
  • Max Sliding Grab
Things you may get:
    • Max Suplex and its EX upgrade
    • Max Wild Cannon Spike and its EX upgrade
    • Max Neck Snap and its cancel
    • Max Shoulder Tackle and its EX upgrade
    • Max Air Steiner and its EX upgrade
    • Max Physical Critical Hit
    • Max Physical Rear Attack
    • 1 Tornado Kick
    • 1 Doppelganger
      Things you should never get:
      • More than 5 Iron Physique 
      • More than 1 Elbow Shock 
      • All other off-class skills 
      • More than 5 Seismic Punch 
      • Cancel - Spiral 
      • More than 1 Grab Mastery
      At level 70 you get enough SP to get all but one or two of the things under the "Things you may get" category, so it's not like you'll have much serious decision making to do. Grapplers have an abundance of SP.

      Here is what you should get with your QP:
      • Max hit rate
      • Max strength
      • Max phys crit
      • Max move speed
      After that it's sort of up to you. Both elemental attack, and base attack strength give very low returns on damage per QP spent. At the endgame, MP will never be an issue, but if until then you find yourself wanting more MP regeneration you could certainly spend it on that. Or HP regen, if you suck and somehow manage to get hit despite having invincibility frames that last forever and ever. Or whatever else. Anything after the four big ones will have only a marginal effect.
      III. Active Skill Analysis
      I'm assuming you at least know what each skill looks like and how it works.  If not, you can look it up elsewhere, such as on the DFO Wiki. Rather than going over that stuff, I'm only going to list the damage of each skill, as well as hidden properties or nuances that are not obvious from just looking or reading the skill description.
      Math alert!
      Here I will list two statistics for each skill: base damage done at max level, and damage increase per SP invested. The listed damage includes independent attack strength but not strength, critical hits, or elemental damage, since these three factors affect fixed and percent damage equally. In order to compare fixed and percent damage, I will use my personal weapon attack strength (666) and independent attack strength (1083). I will not include piercing damage because that is calculated much differently than regular base damage. Your actual values will be different depending on your own weapon attack strength and independent attack strength, but at level 70 you should have close to the same values. Also, these values assume that all possible damage bonuses are being applied, including Unstoppable Grab, Back Breaker and/or Chaos Overseer (where appropriate), and max TP upgrades. The purpose of these numbers is not to calculate how much damage you will actually do, but rather to compare the relative strengths of skills.
      Suplex
      Damage at max: 22,972
      Damage increase per SP: 45.7
      Hidden properties: If you grab from the front, it counts as a back attack. If you grab from behind, it doesn't count as a back attack, but you do get Back Breaker's 30% bonus.  Grants invincibility frames that linger briefly even after you use the skill, allowing you to escape or get ready for your next attack.
      Seismic Punch
      Damage at max: 18,341
      Damage increase per SP: 26.0
      Hidden properties: You have to hit with both the punch itself and the shockwave in order to get its full damage. The hitbox of the punch itself is rather small.
      Fling
      Damage at max: 43,081
      Damage increase per SP: 49.7
      Hidden properties: Even though the shockwave animation plays regardless of the direction in which you Fling, only a downward Fling will produce a damaging shockwave. It's also a back attack if and only if you Fling downwards.  Like Suplex, the invincibility frames stay for a bit even after you finish throwing the target.
      Neck Snap
      Damage at max: 13,351
      Damage increase per SP: 16.9 (this assumes you don't get Chaos Overseer's back attack bonus)
      Hidden properties: The special "stun" inflicted by Neck Snap works on any enemy, is broken by grabs, and prevents them from being launched except by grabs. The stun doesn't land on things that are in the air.
      Shoulder Tackle
      Damage at max: 34,183
      Damage increase per SP: 43.2
      Hidden properties: You momentarily freeze whenever you make contact with anything hittable. Any enemy that gets hit by the indirect attack (that is, something that got hit by something that got hit by the tackle itself) immediately falls to the ground without being launched. Has more x-axis range than you might think. Using it after you dash will cause you to slide a bit. Some attacks will pass over you while you're charging the Shoulder Tackle, but it doesn't work against as many things as Crouch does.
      Air Steiner
      Damage at max: 55,376 (40,171 on the ground)
      Damage increase per SP: 58.3 (42.3 on the ground)
      Hidden properties: At the end of Steiner, you will be in the air, allowing you to use any of your aerial attacks immediately afterwards. It can also hit things that are on the ground, but you must aim carefully. Steiner always counts as a back attack no matter what.
      Elbow Shock
      Damage at max: 25,506
      Damage increase per SP: 28.8
      Hidden properties: Never counts as a back attack when picking something up off of the ground. Does count as a back attack if you grab a standing enemy from behind.
      Spiral
      Damage at max: 58,704
      Damage increase per SP: 55.1
      Hidden properties: Always counts as a back attack. Hold the hotkey instead of just tapping it in order to jump higher. Jumping higher does not do additional damage, it just makes the grab last longer and allows you to carry your targets farther. With two levels of Spiral Upgrade, the stun level is 70 and stun chance is 40%. At three levels of Spiral Upgrade (possible with Ceave's Talisman) the stun level is 75 and the stun chance is 60%. Sweet!
      Cyclone Suplex
      Damage at max: 114,117
      Damage increase per SP: 103.1
      Hidden properties: Grants Super Armor instead of invincibility during the attack as soon as you grab something, all the way until you land on the ground after the final kick. You can't control your landing, or perform any attacks while you're still in the air after the final kick. More attack speed will make your suplexes faster. The final kick hits a large area behind you, but only a short area in front of you. If you grab from the front, all of the hits except for the final kick count as a back attack. If you grab from behind, only the final kick is a back attack, but the whole skill benefits from Back Breaker's 30% bonus.  The exception is if you grab from behind after Neck Snap, the suplexes will also be back attacks for the duration that Neck Snap would normally last against that target. Unlike most grabs, its grab cannon does not interrupt the target. The upside of this is that it allows the grab cannon to get the 25% bonus damage from being a counter. Does not grab objects.
      Wild Cannon Spike
      Damage at max: 184,696
      Damage increase per SP: 128.8
      Hidden properties: Grants Super Armor instead of invincibility during the attack as soon as you grab something, all the way until the rock explodes. More attack speed will decrease the delay after the rock explosion. The last two hits (ie the vast majority of the damage) always counts as a back attack. Grabs ungrabbable enemies, unless they are stationary. Does not have a grab cannon, instead the rock explosion does damage. Hits things on the ground.
      Giant Twister
      Damage at max: 255,643
      Damage increase per SP: Variable; damage increase gets larger the more levels of it you have
      Hidden properties: Counts as a back attack against all enemies except for the first one you grab, as long as you're moving on the x-axis. Grabs ungrabbable enemies, even stationary ones, but you still can't move stationary enemies. Because the damage of each tick increases with more SP investment, and the number of damage ticks increases with more SP investment, the damage growth is quadratic (not linear like almost every other skill, and no, not exponential). This means more SP spent is better-er. Does not grab objects. Ends in a launch, and more attack speed reduces the delay after the final punch.
      Air Clutch
      Damage at max: 202,230
      Damage increase per SP: 468 (no, that's not a typo and yes, you'd be crazy not to max Air Clutch)
      Hidden properties: Always a back attack. Grants Super Armor while spinning, and invincibility during the two slams. Has a grab cannon version, which ends in invincibility frames just like Air Steiner's grab cannon. Huge splash radius on the second slam, big enough to hit almost the entire screen. If your target becomes frozen or invincible or otherwise ungrabbable in between the first and second slam, the second slam will not happen and you will miss out on like half of Clutch's damage.
      Cyclone Attack
      Damage at max: 184,597
      Damage increase per SP: Not applicable; max is 1 level.
      Hidden properties: Grants Super Armor instead of invincibility during the attack as soon as you grab something, all the way until you land on the ground after the final kick. You can hold back while you're spinning to roll backwards instead of forwards, but you must roll and you can't control the distance. Can grab more things while you're spinning sort of like a katamari, and it has deceptively long downward y-axis reach (but not upward). The final kick is just like Cyclone Suplex's kick, and the grab cannon is just like Cyclone Suplex's grab cannon. Does NOT count as a back attack when you grab from the front, and counts as both a back attack AND a Back Breaker when grabbed from behind. Always use Neck Snap before Cyclone Attack.

      IV. Passive Skill Analysis
      WARNING: This section is just a giant orgy of math to justify some of my recommendations in Section II. Skip it if you don't like math.

      There are lots of ways to boost your overall damage. Some of these ways cost SP, and some cost QP. Here I will compare the relative benefits of each stat. The exact percentage depends on your stats, so I'm just going to use my stats as an example.

      Intense Takedown: 50% / 270 SP = 0.185% extra shockwave damage per SP
      Unstoppable Grab: 20% / 600 SP = 0.03% extra damage per SP
      Physical Critical Hit: 10% * 0.5 / 200 SP = 0.025% extra damage per SP, on average, assuming 0% crit rate to start with.
      Physical Rear Attack: 15% * 0.5 / 200 SP = 0.0375% extra damage per SP, on average, assuming 0% crit rate to start with, and all attacks are back attacks.
      Strength (QP): 6 / (1265 + 250) / 20 * 100 QP = 0.0198% extra damage per QP, on average, assuming 1265 Strength to start with.
      Physical Critical Hit (QP): 0.5 / 35 * 100 = 0.0143% extra damage per QP, on average, assuming 0% crit rate to start with
      All Base Attack Strength (QP): 5 / (1033) / 70 = 0.00691% extra damage per QP, assuming 1033 base attack (aka independent attack strength) and all your attacks are fixed damage.
      Elemental Attack (QP): 1 / (220 + 72) / 70 * 100 = 0.00489% extra damage per QP, on average, assuming 72 elemental attack to start with, and your attacks deal elemental damage

      And, just for comparison, let's look at what you get by raising Air Steiner from 20 to 21. (19207 - 18562) / 19207 * 100 = 0.112% per SP. So in order for max (level 21) Air Steiner to be worth it taking over, say, Physical Critical Hit, level 20 Air Steiner would have to comprise 0.112 / 0.025 = 22.3% of your total damage, at minimum.

      Point for point, QP Strength is around 4 times more effective than Elemental Attack, and 3 times more effective than Base Attack Strength at boosting your damage, which is why I said Elemental Attack and Base Attack Strength are kind of crappy comparatively.  This doesn't mean that they're bad or that you shouldn't get them!  It just means that QP Strength is way better.  If you want more damage, there's nothing stopping you from maxing all three.  However, if you're looking to free up QP to be more tanky or have better MP regen, then you want to draw on QP Elemental Attack or QP Base Attack Strength, not QP Strength.

      Also note that Physical Critical Hit and Physical Rear Attack are actually pretty good, almost as good as Unstoppable Grab. One problem is that the damage bonus from them is subject to chance, but if you know anything about statistics you'll realize that that's much less of a problem than it sounds. They're also relatively much less effective when using Sharp-Eye potions, but if you don't plan on using those, then the crit skills are a very good investment.

      There are two ways to get Hit Rate: with QP Hit Rate and with Grab Mastery. QP Hit Rate grants 1% hit rate per 35 QP, while Grab Mastery grants 1% hit rate, and another somewhat insignificant bonus, for 30 SP. However, you can get much more mileage out of your SP than you can with your QP, once you've maxed out QP Strength, so I would go with QP Hit Rate for your hit rate needs.  With additional hit rate bonuses from avatars, emblems, and equipment, you should hit around 20% total, at which point you will almost never miss even in high level dungeons.  If you don't plan on ever getting hit rate emblems or collecting chronicle gear from Otherverse, then and only then should you pick up a few levels of Grab Mastery in order to compensate.
      V. Equipment, Avatars, and Emblems
      Some values will vary depending on quality. Prices were taken from the auction hall at the time this guide was first written. Overall damage increase calculations are performed using my character's stats (1427 strength, 1083 base attack strength, 77 elemental damage, 30% critical hit rate). I'll only discuss things that are at least comparable to non-set Chronicle 2 and 3 gear, or things that people think are comparable to Chronicle 2 and 3 gear but are really not. Chronicle equipment itself is not covered because their effects are quite straightforward, and chronicle sets are not covered because their effects are so drastically different from everything else.

      Weapons
      Chaos Overseer
      Level 55 Unique Gauntlets
      Back Attack Strength +20%, Cyclone Suplex +1, Wild Cannon Spike +1
      Base Attack Strength: 336
      Physical Attack Strength: 674
      Price: ~20 mil
      Commentary: This is the weapon that 99.99% of grapplers should have. Since most of our attacks are back attacks, this basically equates to +20% overall damage. To put this into perspective, this is about as good as +300 Strength, or +200 base attack strength (given my character's stats). Basically the best weapon ever. When you reach level 55, buy one right away. There's no point in not buying one, it's just so good and so cheap. The main downside is that it's a weird shade of yellow and green, which makes it hard to match with any kind of avatar set, for the fashion-conscious among you.  It's also incompatible with the Necklace of Deadly Screams, which is one of the best necklaces you can wear, but there are alternatives that are just as good.

      Black Devil's Hand
      Level 65 Unique Gauntlets
      Back Attack Strength +10%, Intense Takedown +1, Unstoppable Grab +1
      Base Attack Strength: 383
      Physical Attack Strength: 778
      Price: ~20 mil
      Commentary: A valid alternative to Chaos Overseer.  It reduces your back attack damage by 10%, but makes up for it with +1 Unstoppable Grab and extra Base Attack Strength.  Suju refinement also scales better with Black Devil's Hand than it does with Chaos Overseer.  The benefits are its higher Physical Attack Strength, making your few percent skills a little stronger, and its compatibility with the Necklace of Deadly Screams, thanks to its "Elenore-style" damage bonus.

      Corrupt Blood Gauntlets
      Level 68 Unique Gauntlets
      Base Attack Strength: 402
      Physical Attack Strength: 814
      Price: N/A
      +20% damage against humans, 10% chance to do 6000 additional damage against human type enemies, summons Fragments of Delezie (those little purple things that poison you in Reshpon) at a 40% chance per kill.
      Commentary: It's like a Chaos Overseer that's 30 times more expensive, only works against human-type enemies, and kills you when you wear it! What's not to love?

      OP Gauntlet
      Level 60 Unique Gauntlets
      Base Attack Strength: 354
      Physical Attack Strength: 718
      Price: ~20 mil
      Attacks with a 3% chance to increase Strength and Vitality by 35, and Attack Speed by 3% for 20 seconds. Unstoppable Grab +3
      Commentary: The in-game description is wrong. If it actually did increase Strength by 35%, then this weapon would be awesome, but it doesn't so it's not. Still, you might pick one up just to swap in whenever you cast Unstoppable Grab.

      Ad Ha'am
      Level 55 Epic Gauntlets
      Base Attack Strength: 355
      Physical Attack Strength: 693
      Attacks with a 65% chance of +1% Attack Speed and +25% extra damage for 30 seconds when casting Unstoppable Grab. Unstoppable Grab +1
      Commentary: Purchased from Grandis for 1200 Luminants. Totally worth swapping in for when you cast Unstoppable Grab.

      Invincible Iron Arm
      Level 60 Epic Gauntlets
      Base Attack Strength: 372
      Physical Attack Strength: 742
      Melee Weapon Attack Strength +23%
      Commentary: Here we finally have the only weapon that is strictly better than Chaos Overseer in pretty much every way imaginable. However, it is an epic, which requires either incredible amounts of luck or incredible amounts of time and money to obtain. Once you have it though, you can relish the fact that you sweat blood and tears in order to get a weapon that's 3% better than that thing you picked up off of the auction hall for 20 mil. Note that "Melee Weapon Attack Strength" means all of your grabs, as well as Shoulder Tackle, but not shockwaves. Chaos Overseer doesn't increase your shockwave damage either.

      Frozen Hand
      Level 65 Epic Gauntlets
      Base Attack Strength: 405
      Physical Attack Strength: 802
      Inflict Water Damage, Unstoppable Grab +2, Attacks with a 20% chance of freezing an enemy (status level 71) when Spire, Cyclone Suplex, and Giant Twister are used. Deals 20% extra damage to frozen enemies.
      Commentary: That's kind of cool but Chaos Overseer is still better.

      Accessories
      Pel Los Glory
      Level 55 Unique Necklace
      Physical Attack with a 5% chance of increasing Strength by 11% for 30 seconds. Has a 20 second cooldown.
      Price: 60 mil
      Commentary: A roughly 9% increase in damage when it procs once. In practice, it will almost always be on, as long as you don't afk in dungeons. Sometimes, very briefly, it can proc a second time while the first proc is still in effect, and it stacks.  Doesn't proc quite as readily in Tower of Despair and Suju tournaments.

      Necklace of Deadly Screams
      Level 55 Unique Necklace
      Physical, Magical Damage +8%
      Commentary: Negates the bonus from Chaos Overseer, but good with Black Devil's Hand and all other weapons.

      Enhanced Titan Necklace
      Level 65 Unique Necklace
      +61 Base Attack Strength
      Price: 30 mil
      Commentary: Increases fixed damage by 5.6%. Way worse than Pel Los Glory, but cheaper.

      Heartneck Mask
      Level 58 Unique Bracelet
      Attack with a 15% chance of decreasing your enemy's elemental resistance by 6 for 10 seconds.
      Price: 60 mil
      Commentary: If you're like me and you have 77 elemental attack strength already, a single proc of Heartneck Mask will increase your damage by about 2%. And since you have to hit something an average of 7 times in order for it to proc, a lot of your attacks won't even benefit. Still, there aren't a lot of great alternatives among bracelets.

      Bracelet of Deadly Screams
      Level 58 Unique Bracelet
      Physical Critical Hit +7%
      Commentary: Assuming you have 23% physical critical hit chance from other sources like I do, this equates to a 3% damage increase, on average, if you're not using Sharp-Eye potions. Still not great, but marginally better than most non-set Chronicle bracelets, and definitely better than Heartneck Mask.

      Abel Ring
      Level 55 Epic Ring
      +42 Base Attack Strength, +31 HP/min
      Commentary: Increases your fixed damage by 3.9%.

      Fire/Water/Light/Dark Spirit Ring
      Level 50 Epic Ring
      Fire/Water/Light/Dark Damage +15, Respond to enemy attacks with a 20% chance of summoning a level 55 Ador/Naias/Wisp/Stalker for 100 seconds. Can only summon one spirit at a time.
      Commentary: If you already have 50 Elemental Damage from other sources, this equates to 5.6% extra damage, as long as you're doing the right element. The downside is that it has a high chance of summoning a little spirit friend for you which, while cute, can often horribly mess you up in certain Ancients and Otherverse dungeons.

      Enhanced Titan Ring
      Level 60 Unique Ring
      +53 Base Attack Strength
      Price: 60 mil
      Commentary: Increases your damage by 4.9% A little weaker than the fairy rings, and doesn't affect Shoulder Tackle, but you can buy it off the Auction Hall instead of farming hells for it.

      Special Equipment
      King's Book of Secrets - Dervish
      Level 60 Unique Sub Equipment
      +1 Intense Takedown
      +1 Giant Twister
      Commentary: Kind of nice, I guess.

      Heinrich Family Armband
      Level 65 Unique Sub Equipment
      +40 Strength compared to other level 65 sub equipment
      Commentary: Increases damage by 2.4%

      Ceave's Talisman: Grappler
      Level 65 Unique Sub Equipment
      Suplex Upgrade +1, Spiral Upgrade +1
      Commentary: The Spiral Upgrade +1 is amazing, since it increases stun level from 70 to 75, and stun chance from 40% to 60%.

      Blue Dragon Cape
      Level 70 Unique Sub Equipment
      When equipped, casts the Camouflage buff for 15 seconds, +12% Physical and Magical Critical Rate, +10% Critical Attack Strength, +20% damage received.  Cooldown 30 seconds, the effect cancels when unequipped.
      Commentary: Assuming you have 25% critical hit rate already, it's a 10.3% damage increase that's up half the time.  You also take more damage during this time but grappler invincibility frames mean you never get hit anyway.  Overall, it's pretty good, and it only gets better the more crit rate you have.

      Selist/Ratria/Alicia/Sheyd's Tear
      Level 65 Unique Magic Stone
      +28 Fire/Water/Light/Dark damage
      Price: 85/30/60/40 mil
      Commentary: Increases damage by 10.4%. This is a great reason to use Shadow Whisper potions and stack dark damage.

      Titan's Reinforcement Bead
      Level 65 Unique Magic Stone
      +125 Base Attack Strength
      Price: 120 mil
      Commentary: Increases fixed damage by 11.5%. As you can see, it's still overpriced. Don't buy it unless the price goes down.

      Harmony Stone of Destruction
      Level 65 Unique Magic Stone
      Attack with a 5% chance to increase Strength by 100 and decrease Intelligence by 100 for 20 seconds
      Price: N/A
      Commentary: Increases damage by 5.9% when it procs. Don't buy it unless it happens to be very, very cheap.

      Avatars
      Hair: Spirit
      Hat: Spirit
      Face: Attack Speed/ Abnormal Status Resist
      Torso: Attack Speed/ Abnormal Status Resist
      Top: Unstoppable Grab
      Waist: Evasion
      Bottom: Max HP/ Max MP/ Suplex/ Physical Critical Hit/ Physical Rear Attack (for certain event avatars)
      Shoes: Strength

      Emblems
      Go for Strength, Physical Crit, and Hit Rate. Everything else is just flavor.

      Enchantments
      Accessories:
      Shadow damage - Serpentina, Chief Sas, Skull Kane, Evil Sword Aphopis
      Fire damage - Arsonist Bentinck, Admiral Von Beornan, Hyper Mecha Tau
      Light damage- Aracloso, Magneus, Holy Eye Michael, Captain Petralisk,
      Water damage -Ice Golem Ryku, Quong'qng, Queen Rossi, Ice Dragon Skasa
      Independent damage - Blue Shadow Masakame, Bakal

      Shoulder, Belt, Shoes:
      Critical hit - Mad Brigand (shoulder only), Yellow Dragon's Red Bijou Bead

      Weapon, Top, Bottom:
      Strength - Tau Captain, Mecha Gizel, Golgo

      Title:
      Independent damage - Blue Dragon's Black Bijou Bead

      VI. Tips & Tricks
      Combos
      • People will tell you that you don't need combos in PvE, and those people have never done a challenging dungeon. Combos are the difference between slowly whittling away at Gershen Grigun for 2 minutes, and allowing your party to kill him in a single 30 second burst without letting him use either of his two gimmicks.
      • The reason you get Tiger Chain Strike is because it allows you to cancel out of your dash attack as though it were a normal attack. Combined with the fact that your dash attack can hit almost any grounded enemy and bumps it up slightly as it does so, you can do dash attack > Suplex/Fling against grounded enemies to scoop them up, instead of having to wait for them to stand up on their own.
      • Spiral can grab the whole room and plant it in one spot front of you, but does only modest damage. Shoulder Tackle does incredible damage, but only hits in front of you. You can see the synergy here. Throw in a Neck Snap after Spiral to give Shoulder Tackle extra crit rate and, if you have Chaos Overseer, to turn it into a back attack for an extra 20% damage.
      • In order to get the aerial bonus on Air Steiner and Air Clutch against heavy enemies (light enemies are really easy to get in the air, obviously), try Flinging them against a wall and then catching them when they bounce off.
      • Giant Twister can be used in a combo because it ends with a launch, although you may need additional attack speed in order to pull it off depending on the weight of your target.
      • Fling can also result in a launch, allowing you to combo off of it (Shoulder Tackle is an excellent follow-up to up Fling), and with Tiger Chain Strike, you can combo things that are on the ground.
      • Wild Cannon Spike also hits on the ground and also results in a launch, and is particularly good after Air Steiner or Air Clutch, since those two attacks end with you in the air and your target on the ground.
      • Cyclone Suplex and Cyclone Attack slightly launch the grabbed target at the end, but because you're stuck coming back down from the air afterwards, you won't be able to take advantage of it. A sharp teammate can keep the monster juggled for you though, until you come sliding back.

      Party Play
      • Your role in a party is twofold: to bunch up large mobs into tightly packed balls for your AoE-challenged teammates, and to hold/interrupt dangerous enemies (mostly bosses) for your teammates to wail on. Focus primarily on these two things. Don't try to be a DPS hero. It's obnoxious and ineffective.
      • As the grappler, you have the unchallenged power to put enemies wherever you want them to go. With this great power, comes the responsibility to put things in the right place. Catch stragglers and Suplex or Fling them back into the main group. Bring mobile bosses to your teammates so they don't have to run up to you after you catch them. Never, ever use Elbow Shock in the middle of a large group of enemies; instead use it at the very edge and blast everything inwards, into more tightly packed balls.
      • Walls are your friend. Wild Cannon Spike and Cyclone Attack both move a lot of things quickly and abruptly, and this will often cause your teammates' attacks to whiff-- unless you put your targets up against a wall. This has the nice effect of making Wild Cannon Spike and Cyclone Attack stationary, plus you and your teammates don't have to worry about knockback scattering stuff.
      • Since we are a support class, we not only synergize with other support classes, but also many classes that aren't particularly well-known for party play. This includes low-AoE DPS-types such as Blade Masters, Berserkers, Strikers, Rangers, Spitfires, Battlemages, and Monks, as well as pseudo-holders such as Soul Benders, Asuras, Brawlers, Witches, Rogues, and Necromancers. I'm calling them pseudo-holders because I feel totally comfortable saying that we are the uncontested queens of holding (or hold slaves, if you feel like being more modest) of DFO. Pseudo-holders are still great because they can fill in the very brief time between your many grabs with their own cute little grabs, resulting in a completely uninterrupted grab chain.

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      While articles may contain the personal opinions of the writers, they are opinions based on hundreds of hours of gameplay and the general consensus of their respective communities.